1. Field
The present embodiments relate generally to systems and methods for providing product and inventor management services, and more specifically to systems, methods and services for dynamically pricing goods based on shelf life of the good.
2. Background
Many companies lose profit on wasted inventory due to the time sensitive nature of the goods being produced and/or sold. U.S. consumer goods manufacturers and retailers lose billions of dollars in the supply chain due to failures of life cycle management. It has been estimated by the Food Marketing Institute that over 2 billion USD is lost annually by the U.S. grocery industry on products that are destroyed, returned, placed in salvage or donated to charity.
There are several reasons for perishables obsolescence. For example, at the end of the supply chain, a retail store may receive products with less than their desired shelf life. If the store does not take action in time to move the product quickly to shelf, and/or markdown the product to stimulate sales, then the product can become un-saleable resulting in unnecessary wastage costs.
Present solutions are dependent on manual, untimely and labor-intensive processes, which are mostly ineffective. For example, every year the grocery industry comes up with new initiatives to reduce waste, but without the ability to automate the tracking and recording of the product lifecycle/shelf life, they quickly drop down the priority scale.
Consumer product manufacturers and retailers lack the ability to automatically detect shelf life of high-value perishables and dynamically price items to provide incentive to buyers for buying perishable goods with shorter shelf life, which could reduce losses due to failures in life cycle management.